I had such high hopes

Rating: 4/10 (9 July 2005)

No serious spoilers here, but I do talk about the "flow" of the movie, which could be a spoiler if you have no idea what this movie is about.
We went to the "sneak preview" of The Island this evening. It started out as a very technically well put together version of "Logan's Run" (sorry; I haven't seen "Clonus" which is what some people say bears the strongest resemblance). It then evolved/devolved into a Schwarznegger-style blow up everything in the way/take no prisoners action flick (with a very passing resemblance to Blade Runner), and wound up a James Bond - "How do we stop the madman ?" -- movie. (Indeed, Sean Bean, the man who runs the evil company at the core of The Island is also the bad guy from Goldeneye.) In many ways, its a movie that couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be, and went on a bit too long.
All of this would have been fine, if parts 2 and 3 were vaguely believable. Incredibly, Arnold's movies are a good deal MORE believable than this, and that's saying something. After a while, you just start "suspending your disbelief", but you have to go SO far, that it's hard to take it at all seriously. And, I'm not talking about the SciFi concepts here, which are okay. I'm talking about the action scenes, which take on a comic-book unbelievability that's closer to a cartoon.
The special effects are fun to watch, and the loud soundtrack works well in a movie theater. There's a lot of closeups when people are fighting. Sometimes its hard to tell just what is going on; other times, they capture someone getting hit with a wrench, etc., so well that you wince.
Oh, yes, the actors -- McGregor is fine, but nothing special, Johansson is positively wooden, Buscemi is good as always, and finally, there's he treat of trying to remember who Ethan Phillips is. (a hint -- he played an alien on a very well known TV franchise). The script is all over the place, but there are some clever lines.
Sadly, The Island kept declining in stars as it went on -- probably 3 stars for the "setup" of the community in which McGregor lives, but it then rapidly fell, probably to 2 stars by the time your through wondering if it could have possibly happened like this.